


Unfamiliar Ceilings

by neurotrophicfactors



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms, Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-15 18:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5795905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neurotrophicfactors/pseuds/neurotrophicfactors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> “The UNSC is not sure what to make of you and the agents of Project Freelancer. At this time, we cannot confirm just how much you knew about what you were involved in. As such, it is unclear whether you are to be treated as war criminals or the victims of a military experiment gone horribly wrong.” </i>
</p><p> </p><p>In another world, Agent Texas learns the truth about Project Freelancer... and forwards that information to the UNSC. The Office of Naval Intelligence responds with the Spear of Athena: a UNSC Destroyer tasked with taking down the Mother of Invention and apprehending her personnel for investigation. One way or another, justice will be served.</p><p>Were it so easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An End Once and For All

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion.

It happens like this: a UNSC Charon-class light frigate is drifting somewhere above the atmosphere of an ice planet in the Outer Colonies when its engines fail. This is not a mistake. The _Mother of Invention_ , classification RT-636, is pulled in by the planet’s gravity and makes a crash landing on Sidewinder at approximately 1600 hours, local time. Many of the passengers are injured. Most are minor. The ship was already boarded by UNSC officials. More are waiting at the crash site. The rest are hovering like satellites within the planet’s exosphere. They shot the _Mother of Invention_ down.

It happens like this: a skilled pilot takes control of the frigate as it careens toward the surface of the planet and guides its trajectory toward even ground. Even still, metal grinds and crumples against rock and glacial ice. Thrusters rupture and burst into flame. Within the ship, glass and machinery shatter and what furniture isn’t bolted down is sent flying from the inertia. Struts collapse and ceilings fall. Floors give way. As it skids to a halt on the canyon’s edge, the ship leaves behind a trail of debris.

It happens like this: alarms sound and those who are prepared for it take cover and buckle in. Those who are not try to adapt. Those who lack the presence of mind to adapt fail to do anything at all. The _Mother of Invention_ was filled with scientists and soldiers. Now it is filled with tears and broken bones.

But you don’t get to see any of that. You’re too busy falling down the rabbit hole, chasing after someone else’s memories. Or maybe they’re your own. You’re not quite sure anymore. And as for the _Mother of Invention_ , that’s a story that someone tells you later, when you have a better presence of mind. When the only voice you hear in your head is your own, even if you’re not always reliable.

This is your story, Agent Washington.

You wake up to an unfamiliar ceiling. For a moment, another ceiling flashes before your eyes—painted white with a single glass light fixture in the centre. Framed by pale green walls—before grey panels and harsh fluorescent tubes supersede the image. That brief flicker of a faraway room fills you with loss and nostalgia. It was your home. It was not yours. It is someone else’s memory. You have never seen that room in your life.

You hear a voice in your head and it sounds like ~~your daughter~~ Agent Carolina.

_Assess the situation._

This is the situation: your thoughts are like trying to swim underwater in a muddy river. Your head is throbbing in time with your pulse, but the pain of it is distant and your limbs feel like they have been filled with lead. From this you can conclude that you have been dosed with opioids. The lower half of your left arm is encased in plaster and the twinge of pain when your fingers twitch indicates a broken wrist. You do not remember breaking it. Your ankles and right wrist are cuffed to the bars of the cot you are lying in, effectively trapping you. You are dressed in only your sweats, leaving you vulnerable. An electrocardiogram is clipped to your finger. The machine is generating a soft beeping sound at steady intervals. An IV is feeding fluids into your right hand.

This is the situation: you are in a closed room by yourself. It appears to be set up as a medical bay, but the room is too small and there is only one bed. The door has bars in the place of a window. You suspect that you are in a converted holding cell. The conversion is likely temporary. At this time, your left hand lacks the dexterity you would require to remove your IV and pick the lock in your handcuffs. You do not know who your captors are. You can hear the low hum of a running engine but you are not on the _Mother of Invention_. You do not know where your teammates are or if they are alive. You do not know how you got here.

This is the situation: your memory is fragmented. Your last concrete image is of laying down on the operating table, waiting to be implanted with… with ~~Epsilon~~ your AI. After that—you remember too much. It was information overload; too much data trying to occupy the same space. Memories overlapping and conflicting, like graffiti that’s been painted over again and again until the structure beneath it is no longer recognizable. You know how the Pauli Exclusion Principle works: something had to break.

And it did—only it wasn’t you. Barely.

— _A frantic voice, not your own, begging for help and refusing your offers._

_‘No, you can’t help me! You’re dead! The Director told me you’re dead!’—_

_—A sound like a gunshot. A name on your lips. It belongs to a woman who means nothing to you. She is everything._

_Allison—_

You don’t think about it. You don’t know how long it’s been. Part of you doesn’t want to know.

You’re brought to attention by the sound of a door opening. A woman with tan skin and a severe expression enters the room. Her black hair is pulled back into a tight bun—not a single hair out of place—and the double bar insignia on the breast of her uniform signifies that she is a UNSC captain. She closes the distance between you until she is standing next to the cot, her posture tall and rigid. There is a data-pad in her hands.

“Former corporal and orbital drop shock trooper of the United Nations Space Command, current designation under Project Freelancer: Agent Washington. Actual name: David Novak. You completed your basic training in the Leonis Minoris system and were court-martialed from the UNSC in 2539 following the assault of your commanding officer. Shortly after, you were recruited into Project Freelancer.” She looks up from the data-pad and meets your eyes, cold and unreadable. “Am I missing anything, Mr. Novak?”

A small part of you wants to be afraid. The rest of you recognizes the scare tactic for what it is. All those facts sound intimidating when they’re laid out together all at once, but the truth of the matter is that they mean very little. It’s only basic information. She knows nothing about you.

“Don’t call me Mr. Novak,” you tell her. You’re startled by your own voice as you speak and hope that she doesn’t notice. Your voice comes out like gravel and your throat aches. It makes you think of Maine.

“What would you prefer I call you?” she asks, to your surprise.

~~Leonard~~ “Washington.”

“I am Captain Sandra Safdar,” the woman tells you. “You are currently aboard the _Spear of Athena_ and we are on our way to command.”

“UNSC command, I presume,” you rasp.

“Was there another command you were expecting?”

You’re not so sure about that. It seems these days, everyone lies. Instead you ask, “Where are the others?”

“The Director—”

“ _I don’t care about the Director_ ,” you snap—too harshly. Too much heat in your voice. You try to mentally envision yourself raising the opacity of your composure. Layering masks to hide the thoughts that lie beneath.

Captain Safdar now eyes you with calculative interest. “Your fellow agents are in custody. Most of them have already recovered from surgery.”

Your breath catches. You feel like there’s a hand gripping your heart in your chest and it’s squeezing too tightly. “Surgery?”

“Your artificial intelligence units—if you can call them that—have been removed.” Safdar walks slowly around your bed as she speaks, but she never takes her eyes off of you. She wants to see how you react. “An attempt was made to remove all hardware from your neural implants as well, but the tissue had already grown around it and the risk of damage was too great.”

Don’t say anything. Don’t react. But privately, you are relieved.

She comes to a stop on your left. “The UNSC is not sure what to make of you and the agents of Project Freelancer. At this time, we cannot confirm just how much you knew about what you were involved in. As such, it is unclear whether you are to be treated as war criminals or the victims of a military experiment gone horribly wrong.”

You can feel a black sea of memories and emotions churning around you. You inhale and begin counting to ten in a fight to keep your head above water. These are depths you never want to see. You exhale. Breathe in again, and now you can speak.

“I want to see my friends.”

“Be patient, Agent Washington,” Safdar says, her voice carrying a warning tone. “At this time you are in no position to be making demands.”

You stare back at her steadily, defiantly. The corner of her mouth twitches and her eyes drop away as she turns her back on you and exits the room. The tension remains and you wait for the inevitable pull of the undertow, desperate not to slip under the surface again. The sea is full of monsters, Agent Washington, and they all want to eat you alive.

 

 

You’re not sure how much time passes—it could have been hours, it could have been a day. You didn’t sleep—but when the door opens again, you do not expect to see the person who walks through. You never saw her without her armour on. For a long time, there was a betting pool on what she looked like. This was York’s doing, of course, but she was always very careful not to let anyone ever see her face. Now you know why. She stands before you in this parody of a medical facility, dressed in UNSC grey. This is the first time you have ever seen her face, but it is as familiar to you as your own. You notice that she is unrestrained.

Voice crackling, you say, “Agent Texas.”

The corner of Allison’s mouth pulls into a weary half-smile. “Hey, Wash.”

You lapse into silence. Looking at her, she’s a technological masterpiece: a near-perfect copy of the woman ~~you~~ the Director loved. Art imitating life. There are dark circles under her eyes, like she hasn’t slept in years. You think you probably look the same.

She _knows_ —you know that incontrovertibly—and you’re pretty sure that she knows you know too, can see it in the tense lines of your body. The scratches and bruises that cover your arms. Life imitating art. For a long time, the two of you simply stare at each other from across the room, assessing. Agent Texas—Tex—breaks the stillness by crossing the room and taking a seat on the edge of your bed. She closes her eyes and sighs, pulling her blonde ponytail over her shoulder.

“What a fucking mess,” she says.

“That’s one way to put it,” you reply.

She looks at you, considering, but this time you speak first.

“It was you, wasn’t it? Who alerted the UNSC to what was really going on in Project Freelancer.”

She raises a single eyebrow at you. “The captain had time to explain that all to you?”

“No,” you say. “I think you and I both know better than that.”

Tex’s gaze drops to her hand then, where it rests on the bedspread next to your knee. “It wasn’t me—at least, not entirely,” she confesses. “All I did was pass along the information through the right channels.”

Your heart lodges itself in your throat, too big and too painful to swallow. “Connie.”

“Yeah.”

You both fall silent, thinking about your fallen comrade. Your friend. How long has it been now since Agent Connecticut died? You all thought she was a traitor, but she was the only one who saw the truth—and she paid for it with her life.

“She was smarter than all of us,” you say, regret painting your voice in blue. “She tried to tell me so many times, but I never wanted to believe her.”

A bitter laugh breaks out of Tex’s chest. “Save the guilt, Wash. You’re not the one who put a tomahawk in her.”

You want to tell her that it’s not her fault, that she didn’t know, but you know it won’t change anything. Connie will still be dead and there will still be blood on Tex’s hands. Nothing can change that.

“There is one thing that CT’s files didn’t say,” Tex says. Dark hazel eyes meet yours. “The AIs… each of them was a fragment of the Alpha’s mind, the original AI that was based on the Director. Omega was anger, Gamma was deceit, Theta was trust… But Epsilon was made _after_ CT left—”

“ _No_ ,” you say, your voice hard and flat. You glare at her, leaving no room for argument. A storm is brewing in your mind and you won’t be the one to break open the sky.

She watches you with narrowed, predatory eyes, and for a moment you think she’s going to push anyway, but then she shrugs and raises her hands in surrender. “Whatever you say. I’m not a shrink, but whatever your AI was, it was bad. Glad to see you made it through. Just remember that you’re not the only one this project has fucked with. Not by a longshot.”

You speak through clenched teeth, a cage of enamel and bone. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“The others are okay, by the way,” Tex tells you. “Carolina and Maine, less so—but even they will get there eventually.”

Carolina, whose ambition pushed her to her limits and beyond, like a shooting star crashing to Earth. Maine, who relied on his AI for communication after being shot in the throat and never really integrated with him—two minds with separate goals forced into the same body.

You nod your head and Tex takes this as her signal to leave. Her hand is on the door before you stop her with your voice.

“Texas.”

She freezes, waiting for you to continue.

“Captain Safdar trusts you enough to let you walk around without a leash, but do you trust _her?_ ”

Tex pauses, ruminating over her answer. Finally, she says, “I don’t know yet.”

And then she’s gone.

~~She didn’t say goodbye.~~


	2. Contact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May get some editing, may not. I got impatient with waiting for feedback on this chapter, haha. Now has art ([x](http://neurotrophicfactors.tumblr.com/post/139037171449/beautiful-angry-daughter-based-on-a-scene-i)). The perks of being both an author and an artist.

Perhaps twenty minutes after Tex leaves, a UNSC private brings you food and water. At the same time, he realizes that you cannot feed yourself with your left hand and he uncuffs your right wrist. You sit up and he pretends not to watch you while you eat. You’ve never been to the zoo before ~~yes you have~~ , but you imagine that this must be what it feels like to be an exhibit.

From your elevated position, you can see that there is a sink and a toilet set into the wall, not far from the bed, confirming your suspicion that this is a holding cell. When you finish eating, you inform the private that you need to use these facilities. He uncuffs your ankles and warns you not to try any ‘funny business’ while gesturing with his service pistol menacingly—only he just ends up looking like an idiot. You make sure he can gather as much from your expression before you turn your back to him and do your business. Before the private leaves, he handcuffs only your wrist to the bed again.

Not long after his departure, a doctor comes to examine you. Now that you are conscious and in stable condition, he removes your IV and the electrocardiogram. There’s another step toward freedom. It’s not enough, but it’s better.

Some hours later, you are brought dinner—instant mashed potatoes and rehydrated meat of some description—and this time you are left uncuffed when the soldiers leave. You sit on the bed quietly and examine the walls and ceiling, searching for a hidden camera. You spy the small black dome of it in the right hand corner, set into the wall adjacent from the door. It is located close to the ceiling; too high for you to reach.

You feel agitation nagging at you like a cat scratching at a closed door. Now that the painkillers have been metabolized, the virtual emptiness of the cell leaves too much room for thought. Too much thought leads to roads better left untraveled. You’ve seen what they hold in store and have no desire to walk those paths again.

So you walk the room. First you walk the perimeter, edging around the cot and toiletries. Then you simply walk back and forth, from one side of the room to the other. You could do one-handed push-ups, but you don’t want your right arm to become disproportionately stronger than the left. Instead, you decide to do squats and sit-ups.

You freeze and hold your breath mid sit-up when the lights cut out, heart pounding, and realize moments later that the ship must be carrying out its night cycle. You sigh, then start to count your breaths. The bed calls to you, exhaustion tugging you toward a soft place to rest your body, but nothing good can come from dreaming.

You no longer have the will to continue exercising, so instead you sit against the wall next to the camera and drum on the floor absently with your fingertips. In your mind you become an architect, designing and building a skate park while imagining the tricks you could do. ~~Theta would like that~~ you don’t want to think about Theta. You just want to wait for the day cycle to start again. Whenever you feel yourself start to drift off, you bring your left hand down hard against the metal floor, sending pain arcing through your broken wrist. It’s not a good idea, but it works. And that’s good enough for you.

You’re startled out of a doze when the lights come back on, like a child caught misbehaving. Your head aches behind your eyeballs and you lift your good hand to rub at your temples—a trick your mother taught you when you were very young. This memory, you’re certain, belongs to you. Your mouth is dried out, leaving your tongue a piece of damp sandpaper. With some effort, you use the wall to help yourself stand up, legs protesting. From there, you pad over to the cell’s sink to wet your throat and splash cold water on your face. You have a feeling you won’t be left alone for too long.

Sure enough, when two soldiers come to bring you breakfast—oatmeal, an apple, and a carton of orange juice—they don’t leave after you’ve finished eating. Instead the man trains his assault rifle on you while the woman speaks.

“You have an appointment this morning with Dr. Erasmus Gayle. He will be performing a psych evaluation on you and your fellow agents. Our handcuffs will not fit over your cast, but know that if you try to run, my friend Sean here—” she throws a thumb over her shoulder at the man pointing the rifle “—will shoot you. If you try anything stupid, he will shoot you. And then _I_ will shoot you. Am I understood?”

Her voice is certain and her blue eyes are like anodized titanium, sharp and sterile. Her features are fairly plain, easy to miss in a sea of strangers, but you think she probably has a beautiful smile. There are fine lines in the corners of her eyes that suggest she does so often. Right now, however, she is a woman forged from steel.

You nod. Say quietly, “Understood.”

Satisfied with your answer, she opens the door to your cell while Sean follows you out into the hallway with his assault rifle. You wait until the woman is in front of you and then your trio moves as one. The wall to your left is lined with more cells and you narrowly resist the urge to slow down and peer through the bars in search of your friends, but you get the notion that Sean will kick you if you try. The gunmetal grey walls to your right are lined with pipes and cables, like the veins and arteries of a great beast, and you feel like you’ve been swallowed whole. The floor is strangely warm beneath your feet and you have to remind yourself that it’s just because of your proximity to the ship’s nuclear fusion engine.

At the end of the hallway you ascend a flight of stairs, skip a level, and then climb a second set. Here, the hallways have expanded, now wide enough for six men to comfortably walk side by side, and the ship’s infrastructure is hidden away with titanium paneling. As you walk through the belly of the ship, you start to see military personnel; marines and ship crew alike. Some of them glance at you with interest while others are too focused on their own duties to take notice of your passing.

_Know your exit points_. Carolina’s voice in your head.

You memorize the path you take: the second left after the stairs, the first right, and finally stopping at the first set of doors after the bathrooms. Sean gestures toward them with his rifle.

“This is your stop. We will escort you back to your cell after your appointment with Dr. Gayle,” he says.

You think, unbidden, of Counselor Aiden Price and a brew of anger and anxiety roils in your gut. He performed your psych evaluations on the _Mother of Invention_ , as he did for all of the Freelancers. He wasn’t a bad man, but he always made you a little uncomfortable by sheer virtue of being a mental health professional—you’ve always been an intensely private individual and the thought of someone psychoanalyzing you, searching for all of your inner flaws and aberrations, was unsettling. It made you feel naked and it sparked the instinctive urge to raise your defenses, build walls around yourself and fortify them until nothing could penetrate them.

That was then. Knowing what you do now, knowing what he did ~~to you~~ , makes you feel ill. Walls aren’t good enough; you need a fortress.

Your mind buzzes. You don’t want to do this.

“What are you waiting for, a hand to hold?!” the woman behind you snaps impatiently.

You breathe in. Count to ten. Imagine the surface of a lake on a calm summer’s day, cool and smooth as glass. Exhale. Breathe in again. You open the doors and step inside the office.

The first thing you notice is the last thing you expect: there’s a resplendent rug on the floor. You’re not familiar enough with Earth-specific cultures to know where the design originates, but it illustrates twisting vines in rich, natural colours on a burgundy background. When you step out onto it, it is soft and plush beneath your feet, fibres curling around your toes. A flash of memory—your own—of reaching out with a bare foot to stroke tabby fur while your hands were occupied with morning coffee. There are framed paintings on the walls that you do not recognize, and behind the desk on the opposite end of the room, Dr. Gayle’s academic degrees have been hung on display to emphasize his qualifications—just in case there was ever any doubt. 

You are brought up short by the sight of the man himself. You’ve met military psychiatrists before—you think again of Aiden Price; then the psychiatrist who screened you before you were accepted into the marine academy, and a second time when you applied for ODST training; and finally you think of the psychiatrist who examined you when you were court-martialed—Dr. Gayle, however, matches none of these images. Simply put: Dr. Gayle looks like a soldier. His shoulders are broad and his biceps are well-developed—he clearly keeps himself in shape. His salt and pepper hair is buzzed short and his beard is well-maintained. He is fair-skinned with eyes like surgical steel.

His voice is a baritone when he speaks.

“You must be David Novak. The captain tells me you prefer to be called by your designation within Project Freelancer: Agent Washington.”

He watches you the same way a small child eyes an insect, and your own eyes narrow in response. “Just Washington,” you tell him.

“Very well. I’m Dr. Gayle. Please take a seat.” He gestures at the padded chair opposite from him and you reluctantly walk over to sit down. Dr. Gayle leans back and stares at you for a long minute. Eyes like scalpels, searching for a mark to start the incision. “I read your file. You were with the orbital drop shock troopers. I was an ODST once too.”

You know what he’s doing. You don’t need to have a PhD in psychology ~~though you do have one~~ to recognize when someone is using common ground as an invitation to open up. You tell him, “I don’t care.”

He acts like you didn’t speak. “Of course, that all changed when I actually landed.” He lifts his right leg and props his foot on the desk. The lower half of it is cybernetic. “By the time the medic reached me, there was barely anything left. Couldn’t do much leg work then, so I got a PhD. Now I’m here.” He sets his leg down again and knits his hands in front of him, leaning forward. “As I understand it, Project Freelancer sort of saved your ass—but do you still feel loyal to the UNSC, Washington?”

Right now you don’t think you feel loyal to anyone, but you know you can’t say that. Instead you say, “You know, I think I actually preferred when you called me ‘Agent’.”

“You don’t want to answer; that’s fair.” Gayle holds up his hands in surrender. “Especially considering the condition you were in when the UNSC brought you aboard.” A flash of steel. He’s baiting you.

And like an idiot, you fall for it. “And what condition was that?”

“To be frank, you were a mess,” he says with a nonchalant shrug. His wide eyes betray a sense of clinical horror. “The UNSC found you locked up and rambling. We could barely get a coherent word out of you. You continually lashed out. Eventually, they just sedated you and carried you aboard. It wasn’t pretty.” He adds, “In fact, I’m amazed that you are talking so clearly to me right now.”

Your hands are clenched into fists on your knees and you stare at your white knuckles, tendons stretched and tensed like a rubber band. You breathe through your nose as your teeth form a wall of bone. Where did the Director keep you, you wonder? Were you confined to your quarters or did they lock you in the brig? You try to picture yourself on the floor, eyes wild and panicked like a trapped animal. Sclera cloaked in scarlet from burst blood vessels. You see the scratches and bruises on your arms and imagine yourself digging trenches in your body, a desperate attempt to anchor yourself in flesh and _here_ and _now_.

“How is your wrist, Agent Washington?” Gayle asks.

You work your jaw. Your wrist is throbbing. “It’s fine.”

“I have a theory, Agent Washington,” he tells you, as if he’s confiding in you. You don’t look at him. “As I understand it, Dr. Leonard Church of Project Freelancer was experimenting with the use of highly volatile AI fragments. The difference between now and then is that then, you were implanted with one of these fragments.” He sounds like a shark scenting blood. “Your fellow agents who possessed AIs of this manner were not affected in the same way, but yours was different, wasn’t it?” And now he comes in for the kill. “What can you tell me about Epsilon, Agent Washington?”

~~Epsilon~~ ~~h~~ _Epsilon_ ~~e~~ _epsilon_ ~~l~~ **~~EPSILON~~ **~~p~~ ~~epsilon~~ ~~m~~ _EPSILON_ ~~e~~

A woman dressed in army fatigues, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and covered with a cap. Dark hazel eyes meet yours and she cocks her head in that way she always does when you’re irritating her. It makes you want to rest your hand on the bared skin of her neck, like you always do—the inexorable pull of her like the rising tide. But unlike the ocean, you would happily drown in her.

‘ _Leonard, come on. Stop it. Put that thing down!’_ She paws at the video camera in your hand while you grin cheekily. ‘ _You’re going to make me late; they’re waiting for me!_ ’

~~Washington and another died.~~

The paradoxical certainty of your doom while your heart continued beating.

~~Allison~~

“Agent Washington?”

The voice comes from far away, like you’re underwater. You claw your way toward the surface, following the sound.

“Agent Washington, can you hear me?”

You break the surface, pulling air into your starved lungs. You count to ten and feel grateful that you aren’t gasping.

~~I hate goodbyes.~~

Exhale. Breathe in again. Breathe out, now keep breathing.

“Sorry,” you tell Gayle, meeting his concerned gaze. “I got distracted.”

His eyes flicker downward before they find yours again. “So you did. I think we should end our session here today. You look like you could use some rest.”

You’re simultaneously thankful and afraid of what that statement implies. “No, sir, I’m fine,” you lie.

“My next patient is here early; it’s quite alright,” Dr. Gayle assures you. “We made some progress.”

You don’t believe him, but you stand up stiffly. “Fine.”

“Agent Washington,” Gayle calls as you start for the door. “You have not failed any test.”

You pause, hovering in the stillness of the room between you. Without turning around, you ask, “Haven’t I?” and then you exit.

As promised, the UNSC soldiers from before are waiting for you outside the door, but so is someone else.

The first thing you see is ochre skin and eyes of amber. A name is on your lips—a name _you_ know, not him. Next you see the shiny pink scar tissue of his throat, partially covered by a black metal collar. You scale your way down this mountain of a man and anger builds, growing in its intensity as you see the cuffs on his hands and around his ankles. As you realize that the collar around his throat is embedded with a taser while one of the three soldiers surrounding him holds the remote. Like he’s a dog. Like he’s less than human.

You meet his eyes and find them focused intently on yours. The soldiers around him twitch as Agent Maine raises his chained hands to his chin, but the motion he makes is just for you: two fingers on his right hand sweeping across his mouth—his own way of letting you know that he’s relieved to see you alive.

The anger seeps from your pores and you feel your fists unclench. You mirror his gesture and in response, you see the tense lines of his own shoulders relax.

Sean nudges you with the butt of his rifle. “Let’s _go_ , Agent.”

You give Maine a subtle nod before you follow Sean and the woman back down the hall toward your cell.

Maine looks better and worse than you remember, you think to yourself as you walk. Ever since he was implanted with his AI, Sigma, he was different. When you spoke to him, it felt more like you were talking to Sigma than like you were talking to Maine. Maine never spoke much before his throat was shot out, but he communicated in other ways and you had learned to read him. How he shifted his weight, the angle of his head, the movement of his hands and fingers, how he angled his body. When Sigma entered the equation, Maine’s body stopped speaking.

Without his armour, Agent Maine measures in at seven feet tall. The man you saw in the hallway of the _Spear of Athena_ didn’t feel much bigger than you. You didn’t miss the exhaustion in every line of his body. The way his mouth seemed stuck in a frown. 

But his body talked to you again and you’re just so relieved it’s _him_ , confirmation that you’re not the only one trying to pick your way through this disaster. That you haven’t been left behind.

You’re not alone.

 

 

Your cell isn’t empty when you return.

When Sean opens the door, you find Tex sitting on your cot like she owns it. She looks up as you enter and you barely hear as the way is shut behind you, effectively locking you in with the other Freelancer. She scans your features only briefly before she says, succinctly, “You look like shit, Wash.”

You _feel_ like shit. You tell her, “So do you.”

The strange part is: you mean it. Her posture is designed to appear alert and battle-ready, but you see the forward slump of her shoulders and the way her hands are fisted loosely on the bed. Her eyes are too wide, sunken into her skull, and worry has cut grooves across her forehead. You didn’t know it was possible for an android to look exhausted, but somehow she’s managed it. You marvel again at the pains taken in her construction—you guess there really is something to be said about a labour of love.

Instead of giving you the middle finger like you expect, she laughs; a short, humourless bark. “Yeah, I guess I’m not hiding it very well, am I?”

You lean against the wall as you watch her from across the room. You never interacted with Tex much before. You know that the others saw her as competition and that to Carolina, she was a hated rival, but you never really cared about the leaderboard and now you know more about her than you have any right to. Everything is familiar about her but she doesn’t know a thing about you.

“What are you doing here?” you ask her.

Tex swings forward and uses her momentum to lurch to her feet, then she plants them firmly on the floor, facing you, and folds her arms across her chest. “I don’t need you to tell me about Epsilon, but I need to know how much you know about Project Freelancer.”

A myriad of images pass behind your eyelids between one blink and the next—Agents North and South Dakota, the leaderboard, a blonde child running toward you in a playground, dyed red hair and seafoam armour. “Why?”

Tex glares at you and says nothing, immovable even as her eroded walls threaten to collapse.

Blink again, and you realize. “You withheld some of CT’s documents.”

“They have more than enough information to shut Project Freelancer down,” Tex defends.

“I’m betting those files contain all our backgrounds. You don’t think they’ll wonder why they can’t find yours?” you counter.

It’s a mistake. In an instant, you find your body slamming against the wall with a loud clang and your head rocks back to collide with titanium plating, making your ears ring as lights dance in your vision. Tex’s hands are knotted in the front of your t-shirt and she brings her face close to yours, dark eyes blazing.

“ _How much_ do you know?” she demands, and you know that if you deny her, she will beat the information she wants out of you.

Gritting your teeth, you say, “I know everything, _Allison_.”

You know that she was the first AI fragment that split off of Alpha—the Director’s concept of Allison. You know that he wanted her to be exactly the same and that the moment she was created, the goals of Project Freelancer were intrinsically changed. You know that if the UNSC knew what she was, Tex would be extracted from her android body and taken into evidence. When everything is over… she and the other AI fragments will be decommissioned and destroyed.

She releases you with a snarl and steps away, turning her back to you. She’s lifting a hand to rub at her mouth while she thinks, and you take the opportunity to step away from the wall, rolling your shoulders.

“Except you’re not really her though, are you?” you continue. “You’re a shadow.”

Predictably, she raises a fist toward you. “ _Don’t_ call me that.”

Her eyes are calculating and you know exactly what she’s thinking. Can see her weighing the pros and cons of the decision before her.

“If you kill me, you lose all of the trust Captain Safdar has placed in you,” you tell her.

Tex shakes her head and looks away, annoyance clear as day on her face. “Goddammit. I fucking hate when people are right.”

Now you cross your arms, carefully supporting your broken wrist. “So what happens now?” you ask.

Tex points a finger at you. “Now you keep your mouth shut, because the second you talk, I have nothing left to lose and that means there’s nothing stopping me from introducing you to what your colon tastes like.”

~~Bitch~~

“That was a given—I’m not an idiot. I mean what happens to all of us?”

“You know they’re going to put us on trial,” Tex says. “I don’t think they want to though. That’s a lot of work and the UNSC was happy enough to turn you over to Project Freelancer and forget about you. I can’t see them liking the idea of us all walking free.”

“You think we would win then?”

“I _know_ we would…” Tex adds darkly, “in a _fair_ trial.”

You want to believe in the UNSC. You want to, but you remember bone crunching beneath your fist and blood soaking your hand. You remember yelling your voice hoarse and a platoon of weary-faced soldiers behind you, clutching their guns too tightly—more like comfort objects than weapons of war. Hands shaking and an answering tremor in your bones. Rage thicker than blood in your veins. Their dumbass orders would have gotten all of you killed and they had the audacity to cry insubordination when you survived.

You want to believe in the UNSC, but you don’t.

You shift your weight to one foot. “I suppose that means you have a plan then?”

Tex’s chin jerks to the side in a sharp negative. “I have half a plan, but it’s going to take some time and I can’t do it alone.”

“So that’s what this is about,” you say. “You want my help.”

“Not just you; no one is getting left behind. I got us into this mess and I’m going to get us out of it.”

You raise an eyebrow doubtfully. “No offense, but you don’t strike me as much of a team player.”

“I do what I have to do.”

You walk toward her and lower your voice. “And what about Captain Safdar? How long can you hide what you are from her?”

“As long as I need to,” she says. “I don’t have free range of the ship like you think I do; I just have a nicer cell and get a little privacy. But it should be enough.” Her eyes fall to the floor and she lifts a hand to the back of her head. You wonder how aware she is of the action. “I got lucky with Omega—no surgery necessary to access my neural implants, and I pulled him weeks before the UNSC arrived.”

You remember how Omega was made—or part of you does. You remember the way ~~you~~ he screamed and pounded his fists against the walls of his construct. Too many algorithms and not enough time. You think of the way Tex fights and you see where he fits into her puzzle.

“Anger, right?” you say. “That was Omega’s aspect.”

“Yep. That was him. Got really annoying after a while.”

She says it lightly, like Omega was simply an inconvenience, but you see the tic in the corner of her jaw, the slight furrow of her brow. And you remember the feel of him tearing away from ~~you~~ Alpha, a rage that could boil seas and burn worlds.

You think of anger.

“Carolina,” you say suddenly. “How much does she…?”

“Nothing.”

The tone of Tex’s voice catches you off guard. She’s softened, like ice thawed in the sun.

“You haven’t gone to see her then?” you ask.

Tex snorts incredulously as she faces you head on again. “ _Hell_ no! You think I’m crazy? Even if I didn’t look like this, I wouldn’t go near her without power armour.”

It’s a good point; after all, Tex was designed after Carolina’s _mother_. You don’t know who the encounter would hurt more: Tex or Carolina. You ache at the thought of it and hate yourself for it, because you don’t know if you’re more concerned out of your own care for Carolina or Epsilon’s care for Tex.

Tex snaps you out of it, and you can’t help but marvel a little at her indomitable ability to focus on the task at hand.

“By the way, I should warn you that Captain Safdar is planning on addressing the UNSC’s charges against Project Freelancer this afternoon—with all of its agents present. Try to act surprised.”

You straighten your back, standing taller. “I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Tex says, and her gaze drops pointedly. You look down, following her line of vision, and you’re startled to see drying blood in the palm of your right hand from where your fingernails have dug deep crescents into your flesh—you remember how tightly they were clenched during your interview with Dr. Gayle. “I hate when men try to act like they’re invincible. Just keep your guard up and don’t blow your cover.”

A mission objective. Straightforward and devoid of emotion. That’s something you can deal with. “Roger that.”

“Good.” Tex walks past you toward the door, but then she pauses as her hand hovers over the keypad. “You’re different now,” she says quietly, “ever since he was in your head.”

There’s no question of who she’s talking about. You don’t tell her that you look at her and feel the urge to distance yourself and kiss her at the same time. You don’t tell her that there are two strings of memories in your head and you have to remind yourself that your name isn’t Dr. Leonard Church. You don’t tell her that you’re not entirely sure you’re alive and that you remember what it feels like to die— _hurt and desperation and please, please, please, oh god, please make it stop_.

What you do tell her is: “I know.”

And that’s enough for her.

 

 

True to Tex’s word, after your midday meal you are led to a room on the deck above your cells, where you meet with your fellow agents.

Here’s the part Tex didn’t tell you about: you are fitted with a remote-activated electric collar, like Maine’s, and the room you are in is designed like a shooting pen. You and the other Freelancers, all of them handcuffed and wearing collars like yours, are lined up in the centre of the room while UNSC soldiers are perched on elevated catwalks around the circumference, rifles peering over the railings like waiting birds of prey. Captain Safdar stands at the front of the room, facing you.

Here’s the part Tex didn’t tell you about: Captain Safdar is not alone.

You’re standing between Agents Maine and Carolina. On your left, Maine serves as a human shield between you and the soldiers above. He knows this and meets your eyes, nodding. You know this to mean that in the event of a massacre, he will protect you. To your right, Carolina doesn’t even look at you. Her acid green eyes are burning straight ahead at Captain Safdar and the dark-skinned man standing next to her.

The man whose grey uniform has the emblem of a pyramid with an O in its centre stitched above his breast.

You’re not surprised to see that the Office of Naval Intelligence is interested in these proceedings. After all, they did fund and authorize Project Freelancer, providing much of the equipment that was used over the course of the program. You _are_ a little surprised to see that they’ve sent an agent here to personally oversee the investigation.

Captain Safdar steps forward and speaks.

“You all know why you are standing here today. The official charges against Project Freelancer are theft, misuse and destruction of UNSC property, unauthorized engagement, unethical human experimentation, and torture.”

You watch Carolina as Safdar speaks, see her jaw tighten and her muscles go rigid. She is static electricity: energy poised to strike. Her hair is red like blood beneath the fluorescent lights.

She steps forward and all guns train on her. On her other side, Agent York flinches toward her reflexively, as though pulled along by invisible strings. She ignores them and when she speaks, her voice trembles with the force of her anger. There is an earthquake at her core, but still she stands tall and with dignity.

“On what grounds does the UNSC press these charges?” she demands.

The ONI agent’s mouth tugs to the side in a wry grin and he ducks his head before stepping forward. “I’m glad you asked, Agent Carolina. My name is Colonel Lance Keats, and I have been assigned to head the investigation on Project Freelancer,” he says in a deep bass. He starts on the far right hand side of the room with Agent Wyoming and meets each Freelancer’s eyes. His gaze is dark and piercing, like the silent, endless depths of space. Once he has reached the end of the line, he addresses all of you. “The agreement, upon the formation of Project Freelancer, was that the program was to be used to test new armour and enhancements for UNSC soldiers on the field. With new advancements in neural hardware, we were also interested in the practical applications of smart AIs outside of running our ships and statistics. For this purpose, Project Freelancer was granted one artificial intelligence program. Because of the experimental nature of the program, the UNSC gave Project Freelancer covert assignments that would keep them away from the front lines and civilian eyes.

“Imagine our surprise then, when we received word that Project Freelancer had been taking on its own mission directives against Insurrectionist factions independent of UNSC command. And not only that, but it was conducting psychological experiments on its own agents without either consent or approval from any research ethics boards.”

He laughs to himself sardonically and begins pacing back and forth in front of you and the Freelancers. He reminds you of a panther, prowling. You know what’s coming and you take slow, deep breaths to prepare yourself for it.

“But what really takes the cake,” Keats continues, “is how one artificial intelligence unit was split into nine—”

_Ten_. They’re missing Tex.

“—through the employment of psychological torture. Do you understand what that _means?_ Dr. Leonard Church tormented a mind so thoroughly that it splintered itself into _nine pieces_ to protect itself.”

— _Too many statistics. Too many variables unaccounted for. To a mind like yours, a single second is an eternity but you don’t have a single second and there are too many processes running simultaneously. They’re going to die. Oh god, they’re going to die—_

Your left hand spasms, sends a jolt of pain through your broken wrist, but you’re no longer a construct of binary systems and nano-circuitry. Your name is David Novak and you are Agent Washington, _not_ Epsilon or Leonard Church.

Keats stops then and turns on his heel to face you again. “Nuremberg Principle number IV states that even actions taken under direct orders from your superior are your responsibility alone, so long as the orders were not given under duress. Here’s where the law gets tricky: there are different levels of culpability that depend on your awareness of the crimes being committed. You understand, then, my dilemma when ONI has evidence that you, the agents of Project Freelancer, were the unwitting pawns in an unauthorized psychological experiment.”

You think back to your first conversation with Captain Safdar after you woke on the _Spear of Athena_ : _‘As such, it is unclear whether you are to be treated as war criminals or the victims of a military experiment gone horribly wrong.’_

The Captain steps forward now, standing at Keats’ side. “Keeping this in mind, it is in your own personal interests that you are honest and forthcoming with what you know of Project Freelancer.”

Carolina is frowning. She’s still angry, but it’s a composed anger, compacted into something more manageable that she tucks away beneath the surface. Lighting contained within its storm cloud. “I have one more question: where did the information come from?”

“That’s classified,” Keats tells her firmly.

Carolina’s hands curl into frustrated fists.

Safdar looks up at the soldiers on the catwalks. “Please return the Freelancers to their cells.”

Before you are taken away, you look back at Carolina. Her head is bowed, hiding her eyes behind a burning curtain of hair. There’s red peeking out from behind her curled fingers; her palms are bloody, like yours. You hate the Director more than ever before.

**Author's Note:**

> More to come. It's turning into a far bigger thing than I intended.


End file.
